


Shock and Awe

by ManaPotion



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, But also, Enemies to Lovers, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-hallucinations, Fucked Up Relationships, Gore, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Limbs, Luke’s Poncho, M/M, Mutual Pining, Psychological Trauma, awkward interactions between Hux-Ren-Phasma and Fin-Poe-Leia, everyone is gay in space, referenced ritual consumption of flesh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7056106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManaPotion/pseuds/ManaPotion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the destruction of the Starkiller, Ren is delivered to Snoke to complete his training. Hux's sadism at Ren's failures falls bitterly to ash in his mouth as he stands witness to the after-effects of the Supreme Leader's harrowing training, leaving the knight more than ever unsettling, chaotic, unhinged. The general finds a fierce, unreasonable possessiveness toward his rival begin to take form as the Order reels from the loss of the Starkiller and plans a multi-pronged retaliatory strike against the Resistance.</p><p>The two rivals barely have time to explore their strange, wretched bond, before the galaxy is plunged into even greater chaos - the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion. Faced with this new threat from a vicious, alien warrior-race, whose very presence is an absence in the Force, The First Order and the Resistance must join forces to survive, or be obliterated.</p><p>=== Not done posting yet! ===</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sorcerer

**_Art by[sirins-tree](http://sirins-tree.tumblr.com/)_ **

 

 

General Hux is barely allotted six days' reprieve before Kylo Ren returns to the Finalizer.

The knight had been a largely incoherent, partially incapacitated vent of thermonuclear rage after his retrieval from the collapsing Starkiller core – Hux's command shuttle and its detachment of Shock Troopers barely enough to contain him for the duration of the agonizing series of hyperjumps before they could dock back at the flagship and reconvene with what remained of their fleet, in one of the interference-heavy dark nebulae in the Outer Rim marked for such emergencies.

That was when Hux had ordered his men to deposit the disgraced knight in the medbay, set a course for the Supreme Leader's chosen rendezvous point, pointedly ignored medbay's distress signals for more orderlies and tranquilizers that kept popping up at his personal console, and hoped to have washed his hands clean of the matter.

In fact, the universe would allow him no such thing. “ _It is time to complete his training,_ ” Leader Snoke had said. Hux assumed this would entail months – weeks, at the least. Perhaps upwards of an annual quarter. Ample time to reorganize and restructure production, press allied planets for resources, redefine treaties, seize Outer Rim territories, amp up recruitment. All with the blissful lack of a masked, hulking menace who questioned, belittled, and thwarted him at every turn.

Though he'd seen Ren's face, now. Almost shocked at his youth – the counterpoint of his master's ruined features, the decrepitude of the late Emperor, the legends of the Sith Hux's only available points of comparison when it came to Force users of the Dark Side. It had been foolish, really, he'd thought, that day in the conference room, and again when retrieving the Leader's apprentice as the frozen planet collapsed around them, that he'd ever felt truly intimidated by the man. Though he could certainly now better understand the usefulness of the mask. That air of creeping dread the knight carried with him lightened notably when one was faced by a young man of large eyes and a soft mouth, bouts of rage and destruction or no.

Six days pass, during which Hux sleeps little and eats even less, grief and heartache neatly coiled into a serpentine drive for retribution.

Phasma is furious, humiliated, lucky to have survived. She drills her troopers with renewed vigor, a frustrated hunger Hux hasn't seen seep through her iron composure in years. Her stormtroopers are eager, willing, near-desperate. The loss of the Starkiller shocks the Order to its zealous core, until their disbelief, their confusion, their cumulative wrath is palpable in every hallway, on every bridge, in every conference and holocall and locker-room and mess.

For six days, Hux manages their rearmament with no small measure of pride at the thrumming, rising ire of his forces, a fleet of minds priming for retaliation. Though, in honesty, his pride is a sallow buttress against the ignominy the loss of the Starkiller always has pressing down against his spine, every time he has to strike mention of it from an Order record, every time he catches sight of his reflection in the violet-dark haze of the nebula through a viewport. It is little comfort, but if the Resistance now envisions the Order in disarray, spirits broken, Hux looks forward to their next meeting. Hosnia Prime will soon be but a notch in the belt. All the Resistance has accomplished is to kick over the proverbial anthill.

Then, on the end of the sixth day, Hux receives a command-level transmission. The Finalizer is to retrieve Kylo Ren at the rendezvous in less than twenty-four hours. Hux is to follow the new orders Ren will bring. He is to continue overseeing rearmament.

He is well and truly fucked.

      


 

He doesn't know why he's bothered to greet the knight's arrival at the docking bay in person.

“Kylo Ren, back again so soon?” he calls as soon as the ramp touches down and the vents shut off with a hiss of smoke, the knight, helmeted and still limping, stomping from his command shuttle. “I trust we should begin with the debriefing?”

Kylo Ren doesn't respond. Doesn't so much as _raise_ his head. Brushes right past the general, heavy troopers at their sides saluting as he passes. Like Ren never even heard him. Like Hux doesn't exist.

He bristles, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily, struggling to tamp down his resentment at the little display. Kylo Ren has been back onboard for less than sixty seconds, and already Hux feels at his wit's end.

Hux stalks off, pointedly taking the opposite direction the knight has gone in, even though it takes the general out of his way.

Sod the kriffing debriefing, then. Leader Snoke can hardly fault him for his own apprentice's misconduct. Hux has more than enough on his plate at the moment.

        


 

“Captain Phasma, why is the Fourth division hyperjumping into the Tashtor Sector?” General Hux flicks over the fleet activity holo with one long gloved finger, holding down the key to his direct line to Phasma with the other. It's just about lunch the following day – not that Hux is having it.

“Kylo Ren's orders, General,” comes her reply, voice tinny though the helmet's modulation. “I assumed you had been apprised?”

Hux's hand leaves off the holo to pinch the bridge of his nose. “In fact, I had not. When were you informed of this?”

“I wasn't, General. I assumed you had gone over my head. Not that I would dispute it, General,” she adds, “after my.. inability to contain the threat on the Starkiller.”

“I would not have, Captain. It was a sore day for all of us. I'll get to the bottom of this.”

Kylo Ren is in his chambers, of course he is, likely still sleeping, Hux surmises with distaste. The knight's utter disregard for Order scheduling and apparent complete freedom to do so had been no small source of aggravation in the past, and Hux is rather bitterly unsurprised to see that the apparent completion of his training has done nothing to change his habits.

“Ren,” Hux barks into the door's comm, “open this door. I know you're in there.”

Like the eight attempted calls the general had made to the knight from his office, this, too, receives no reply.

“Ren, this is not a voluntary meeting. Open this door.”

No reply.

Hux weighs, for a brief moment, his desire to avoid direct altercations with this particular Force user, against the potential ramifications this level of professional misconduct can have on the good order and moral of his fleet. He uses his command override on the door.

He's half expecting his way to be barred by some invisible force, but finds no such thing as he enters, seething, but wary.

There's clothing strewn around, a chair toppled. The lights are off, and Hux claps them up to fifty percent instantly. The mask sits in its pool of ashes at one corner, something like a covered altar in the other. Bloodstained sheets hang partway off the regulation cot to the floor. The dark curtains are drawn shut against the transparisteel.

The sound of running water comes from the fresher, and Hux finds his temper flaring yet again. Even _he_ is set with a sonic shower. The wastefulness, the _insolence_ of this man pricks at every hair on his body. This man who was, presumably, raised in royalty while Hux and his peers warred for survival in the raider-swarmed, lawless wasteland that was the Outer Rim. He enters the fresher.

He can see Ren's outline, blurry through the half-open, semitransparent plastoid wall of the shower. Steam coils out of it, past Hux and into the room behind. Ren isn't moving.

“Care to tell me what the Fourth division is doing jumping into the Tashtor Sector?” Hux begins.

No reply.

“Allow me rephrase myself. As by article three section six of The First Order Military Code, all operations flagged as high-level activity, which _includes_ the reassignment of tactical divisions, must be submitted to review by all five-star ranking officials. If such an order comes from the Supreme Leader, all five-star ranking officials must be apprised of such reassignment in a timely fashion. What this means, _Kylo Ren_ ,” Hux's voice sharpens to a snap, “in laymen's terms, is that you _do not move my kriffing fleet without first telling me._ Am I understood?”

No reply.

Hux walks in, stands to the side, careful not to get close enough to the spray from the unclosed shower door, lest it wet his uniform. Just enough to get a glimpse of Ren.

He's stood there, breathing heavy by the look of it, back mostly facing Hux at this angle. Hux sees just enough red against the white skin to know the knight's wounds are still raw, opened, before the surprisingly well-muscled arse catches his eye and has him, oddly, avert his gaze.

“Ren.” Hux tries again, more quietly.

“..General.” The voice is a brontide, like thunder off the coast on Arkanis, and its rougher, sorer than Hux remembers it being, that high, wild, animal howling of his in the snow on the Starkiller.

The water that runs off Ren pools pinkish with blood around his feet.

Hux hesitates. “Did you hear what I said?”

“What?”

“..Did you hear what I said.” Hux repeats, keeping his voice low.

Ren turns then, to half face him, careless of the way the hot spray of the shower shifts over the planes of his wound-purpled chest, his scar-slashed face.

His drenched hair hangs this way and that, plastered across his nose, his eyes, his brow, sticking in the furrows of the gash that splits all three. He doesn't speak.

“..Are you quite well?”

Ren laughs, and it's a weak, unstable sound. “When you last set foot on Arkanis. Did it fill you with sorrow? Knowing you would never return again.”  
  
Hux suppresses a shiver at the knight's tone. Like he's some sort of augur. Like he can't even see Hux, like he's looking straight through him and onto that moment, fifty-five thousand lightyears away, thirty one years into the past, the cloudy afternoon the evacuation from Scaparus began.

Absurd.

“You're quite certain of that, are you?” Hux keeps his tone level. “I had in fact planned on visiting again. When circumstances allow.”

Ren drops his gaze to the drain, to the blood-tainted water twisting down into it.

“No. You will not return to its surface again.” The water flows over the knight's face, hair, spraying off the prominence of his nose, his brow, his chin. “It rains fire on Arkanis.”

Hux's growing discomfort at the situation he's walked into wars with his usual desire to roll his eyes at Ren's theatrics. Unless some sort of cataclysmic, unprecedented disaster has transpired in the last ten minutes he's been off-bridge, Arkanis is right where he left it. Drenched in rainwater.

“Drowning,” Ren corrects, and Hux starts, he hadn't felt the press, the heat on his brain, the ten thousand needles like irradiation that prior preceded Ren's attempts at reading his mind. It had always been more than enough warning for Hux to resist, to snap at him, to redress the attempted intrusion. The knight held no real jurisdiction over him, beyond his less-than-veiled threats. Hux is not ignorant to Imperial history – he knows well of the reign of fear the late Emperor's Sith employed, of the excision of its admirals, its officers. Such a waste of time, of resources, when a man could merely be demoted to petty officer rather than executed.

“Is that what you would have done to FN-2187, General? How does one demote a man from latrine duty?”

Hux bristles, straightening his already rigid spine, feeling his nose twitch with displeasure. He struggles to quell his indignation at the knight's apparent new-found talent for entering his thoughts – after all, he'd just walked in on the man in the shower.

“The trouble with executing men for erring, Lord Ren,” Hux says instead, employing the honorific for the first time on a mixture of assumption and diplomacy, “is that it depends where one decides to place the blame. The General, who ultimately manages a fleet of two-and-a-half million? The Captain, who trained and drilled the trooper, by hand? Or the knight, whom it is said can read minds and sense motives, who was despatched with the man in person, just hours prior to his betrayal?”

That gets Ren's attention. His head jerks up, turning to face Hux. His expression suddenly open, his eyes gone wide. Something wells in them, twitches at the knight's lip. Something like fear.

The seconds tick by. One, two. Ren takes one uneven step back in the shower, one shoulder hitting the tiled wall. One large hand stretches out to grasp the shower door frame. As though he suddenly needs it for purchase. The dark eyes are blown, glossy. Frozen like amber.

Hux is all at once gripped with the feeling that he should make his exit. And quickly.

“..I can see this is an inopportune moment. Admittedly this is hardly the place for such discussions. I ask you, simply for the sake of the Order's operational efficiency, to inform me where the repositioning of the fleet is concerned.” He takes one more look at the knight, still clenched onto the shower frame, gaze still locked where Hux had been standing, a moment ago, before he'd moved to leave. “..I'll let myself out.”

  


 

Hux does receive his response. It's nothing more than a handwritten note he nearly tramples beneath his boots, as he exits his door at 0500 the following morning.

> _The Fourth is being restructured into six subdivisions. One for each of my knights._  
>  _Skywalker must be found before he can rouse the jedi._  
>  _Four will begin to persuade the Resistance to revealing him._  
>  _The remaining two are in deep ops._  
>  _Ren_

Hux doesn't know whether to feel grateful or furious.

Indeed, the astronomical losses following the destruction of the Starkiller have left the Order in little position to spread out their offensives so soon – and the Fourth, nonetheless, renowned for some of the Order's most talented TIE-fighter pilots. Still, Hux supposes, there was no way around the fact that accursed Force-users had brought down the Empire. And indeed the Starkiller. He does not wonder at the Supreme Leader's focus in hounding out Skywalker.

But he does stand in resentment as to his own inability to find him.

Hux had hoped to be spared Ren's unnerving presence during his Chief of Staffs Committee briefing on the planned retake of one of the moons above Mobus in the Klasse Ephemora system.

But the man is a menace, and seems to make himself present at every high-level meeting Hux finds himself hoping Ren would abstain, and conveniently otherwise engaged every time Hux thinks he has an opportunity to get some information out of the knight.

“Not Mobus,” Ren interjects, when Hux is only halfway through the second paragraph of his meeting protocol. Hux exhales sharply through his nose.

“No, Lord Ren. Not Mobus. M-14, one of the moons orbiting Mobus. Do try and keep up. Now, as I was saying, the–”

“ _Not_ Mobus,” Ren says again, still seated, eyes flashing up at him, like he's trying to sear through Hux with his gaze alone.

The general pinches the bridge of his nose, leaning against the table with the other hand. “And why is that, Lord Ren? M-14 is rich in gemstone and silica, among other minerals, which I'm sure I don't need to remind you or the staff we currently stand in record shortage of for ablative armouring and electronic semi-conductance–”

“Not Mobus. It's,” Ren pauses, glancing at the table a moment before rejoining Hux's gaze, “protected.”

“Protected, Lord Ren?” Hux's tone is weary, unimpressed. “All sensors indicate the atmospheric storms from the planet that forced our evacuation of mining facilities have been dormant for months now, with no indication of imminent recurrence. Therefore we should prime our reclamation sooner, rather than let the place fall, yet again, to Rim pirates, whereupon we will be forced to expend manpower in order to–“

“Are you going to spend the rest of this meeting forcing me to repeat myself?” Ren snaps at him. The chiefs of staff shift uncomfortably in their seats around the table. “Surely you have better things to do with your time, General? Yes, not Mobus. Not Mobus. Not fucking Mobus. Am I getting through to you? Mine your gemstone elsewhere, _not Mobus!_ ”

“And may I enquire as to why that is?”

“Because, General,” Ren shoves his chair back as he makes to stand in a flash of black, a ripple of tamped wariness going through the officers at the table, “those are my orders.”

Ren storms from the room. Kaplan clears his throat, Unamo tugs at her collar. Hux drops his head momentarily, before rolling his shoulders to conceal it as a stretch and returning to stand at full attention. Whatever had transpired in the six short days Ren spent with the Supreme Leader has scarred the man – though not, evidently, affected Ren's talent for undermining his general. “Well then. Suggestions from the secondary list?”

       


 

Hux walks onto the bridge to begin his Alpha shift the following cycle, just in time to hear Kylo Ren priming Kaplan for the ground invasion of Acherin.

“I thought, Lord Ren, the Committee had established that the retake of the Red Twins system would be inopportune until recruitment has successfully increased our conscription numbers by thirty percent, which, I'm sure you recall, is not predicted to occur for another month.”

Ren ignores him, though he pauses in his speech until Hux finishes. And continues where he'd left off as soon as Hux does finish, never having turned to face him. Kaplan's eyes dart between the knight and the General standing on the main walk behind him, his hands poised on the console.

“Is there a problem, Colonel?” Ren growls, still pointedly ignoring the way Kaplan's gaze keeps flitting nervously between the knight before him and the general behind.

“No, sir.. the General..”

“You have your orders, Colonel.” Ren deflects.

Kaplan swallows, fingers skimming the console to relay the assault procedures, eyes begging entreaty of Hux. Ren turns on his heel.

“Ren, may I have a word,” Hux barks, his tone all but asking, as the knight surges past him, hooded cape lifting at the speed of his stride.

“No,” Ren growls back.

Hux follows him, nonetheless, boots clacking imperiously on the main walk as his long legs swiftly match Ren's stride. “Do these orders come from the Supreme Leader, Lord Ren, or do I have to remind you of my request when we last had a conversation about protocol regarding fleet deployment?”

Ren stops suddenly, just at the main doors leading off the bridge, forcing Hux into an abortive halt. Ren fixes him with a lop-sided grin and replies, louder than is quite necessary, “What, you mean when you joined me in my shower?”

Hux can feel himself redden, can hear a choked gasp, a stifled laugh, a fit of coughing break out in the sunken data pit behind him. He snarls, grasps onto Ren's arm, and drags the knight through the doors and into the nearest conference room. He's aware his reaction doesn't exactly help appearances. He can't help it. Ren's always crawling under his skin.

“Yes, _that_ conversation,” Hux hisses at a Ren who's half-laughing, who's miraculously let himself be dragged into the empty room. Hux should probably be worried as to why, but heat of embarrassment still hasn't left him. It's not as though he's been ignorant to the crew's rumours about them. He suspects Ren's little comment has just won someone a substantial bet pool. “Honestly, Ren, if you would just _give me_ a list of the orders in writing, I assure you, this entire process would function far more smoothly. You demand we abandon Mobus, you pre-empt instead the retake of Acherin? Can we really afford more trooper losses at this point? Can you make yourself present at tactical meetings if you insist upon reorganizing all of our conclusions on your own afterwards?”

“Acherin is ready,” Ren replies, the smirk draining from his scar-torn face, “it wasn't during your last tactical meeting. A local disturbance has made it vulnerable. We move now and we take it, at far less the cost.”

“Oh? And what intelligence are you basing this upon? None of your knights are currently despatched near the Red Twins, unless that, too, has been altered since last I was apprised.”

“ _My_ knights are none of your concern, General,” Ren returns, face gone hard. Then he adds, somewhat more quietly, “nor are my sources.”

“Oh?” Hux arches an already high brow, “I certainly beg to differ, Ren. I feel the need to remind you yet again that _I am not averse to any strategies that mean the restoration of order to the galaxy._ We parted last as rivals. Perhaps, had our collaboration been less combative, we might not have lost the Starkiller.”

The hardness in Ren's eyes shifts, grows more thoughtful. He's considering. He chews the corner of his too-full lip, and Hux wonders how often _that_ had happened, beneath the mask that hid it. Ren gives too much away without it.

“I saw it,” Ren mutters.

“You saw it?” Hux asks, frowning.

“Does an echo follow you around, General? Yes, I saw it,” Ren snaps, irritable.

“What? Where? Some kind of reconnaissance footage? On a report? One of your flights of fancy? Which?”

“Does it matter? You'll have the results soon enough.”

“Yes, Ren, it does matter, in fact a great deal; did you at least attempt to corroborate your.. _instinct_ before having Kaplan make landfall?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

“There wasn't time.”

Hux lifts a gloved hand to his forehead, incredulous, and already exhausted enough for it to be gamma shift. “Did you just risk twenty thousand troopers _on one of your mystic hunches_?”

“They won't need half that number! And this is why, General, I don't see the necessity of open dialogue with you, on matters past your understanding.”

“Is this how you conduct all of your tactical operations, Ren? Based on funny feelings that may as well have been caused by the mess hall's Mystery Meat Mondays?” It's barely been a minute and Hux has already forgotten his olive branch. “If that is indeed the case, it explains their rather lacklustre rate of success.”

“What do you know beyond the virtual solace of a _simulation_ , General?” Ren snarls, hissing the word like it's an affront. “Grown men playing at games. You know nothing of the true drum of combat. It doesn't surprise me that your first real brush with it ended the way it did.”

“Yes and what are _you_ good for, Ren?” Hux wheels on him, knowing he shouldn’t rise to the reply, but unable to stop himself, the knight, as ever, flaying his nerves wide open. “Besides having your arse sliced nearly in half by a starving orphan in rags? You're one step above a tusken with a gaderffii stick! Perhaps one day the obvious advantages of tactical simulations will dawn on you, saving you from an avoidable death. Then you might make yourself of use for something other than terrorizing your own men! As of yet, the only death you seem to be able to orchestrate is that of unarmed subordinates, those expressly forbidden any form of retaliation against you by the very tenants of the only cause they're willing to die for!"

Ren's arm shoots out, but Hux has seen the security holo of what he did to Mitaka not three weeks prior. Recognizes the motion. He's done some research. It wouldn't do to have every member of his highest ranking officer's corps completely defenseless against these infernal sorcerers. Ren starts, evidently not expecting the resistance, and redoubles with such a force it sends Hux not scraping along the floor into his outstretched choke-hold, but crashing right into him.

It surprises them both.

Hux knees hard into Ren's groin as soon as he's able, the impact almost doubling Ren over. The knight shoves at Hux with the Force, intending to send him into the wall, but Hux has gripped onto his arms, and they both go flying to the floor. Ren tries to pin him down as the General struggles to get free, snarling. Ren's lashing out just physically, contact with the Force momentarily severed, a poor habit of his when he’s keyed up. He's just barely keeping his neck out of reach of Hux's now bared teeth.

 _He's like an animal..._ it catches in Ren's throat, the way the sickly white sheen of the ceiling's halogen light reflects off the general's canines.

Suddenly the door to the conference room slides open, and from the corner of his eyes Ren sees the unmistakable chrome of Captain Phasma before she rushes toward them.

"On your feet, the both of you!"

Ren feels her gaunt clamp down on his shoulder, and the heft she applies would have flung a lesser man, certainly one not Force-sensitive. As it is, it pulls both men to their feet.

"What if a trooper had walked in? Is this the face of order you wish to present?" She has Hux by the collar, he and Ren still grasped onto one another's arms, but she holds them apart like dogs. Ren doesn't fail to notice the way she's positioned her body – shielding her General. Ren's been in enough fights that it no longer disturbs him how no one ever comes to his side.

The moment that follows is filled with nothing but mounted tension and laboured breathing, before Ren feels Hux's admittedly unexpectedly firm grip relinquish, and does the same.

Ren leaves without another word.

"My apologies, General," Phasma releases his collar as the door slides shut behind the knight. "You may submit me to disciplinary action, if you see fit."

"Why don't we say," Hux is still panting, and straightens his rumpled jacket, "you won't report me, Captain. And I won't report you."

"General." Phasma clicks her boots together and exits the room.

       


 

At their next meeting, Hux makes more of an effort. Ren's been oddly silent throughout, with none of his usual backlashing, staring instead at something indeterminate in the dead space before him.

“And, as a result of our successful retake of Acherin, due in no small part to the foresight of Lord Ren, our shipyards have been able to begin construction of The Calamity, our new Resurgent-class Star Destroyer,” he directs that at Thanisson, freshly promoted, “ten weeks ahead of schedule.”

Ren doesn't respond to the bone he's thrown him. He's not responding to much of anything, really. Hux clears his throat and continues.

He's just finished his summary on their recent recruitment increase when he catches himself before moving to the next point on the protocol. If Ren can refrain so long from interrupting, Hux can ask for his input. “Lord Ren, any insights?”

Ren's still staring into dead space, unresponsive to the heads turning expectantly onto him, and Hux cringes slightly at his mistake, feeling the air in the room thicken into discomfort.

“Moving right along, then, the rearmament of the fleet continues with–”

“You killed him.”

It's Ren, and Hux feels his heart, such as it is, sink as again all heads turn to face the knight. Ren is staring straight at Unamo, who's suddenly blanched even more than her usual shade. “You made it look like a civilian did it,” Ren continues, “you hoped that no one would ever find out. It still bothers you. Fourteen years later. You think of him, whenever you see someone fidget with their sleeves. He used to do that. The way Thanisson is doing right now.”

It's Thanisson's turns to pale. But Ren looks right past him, training his gaze onto Vice Admiral Resdox.

“You think your children are doing well, Vice Admiral? No, not those children. The ones you don't talk about. The ones you made on that whore in Namadii. They're not. The younger's on the street, now. Mom goes searching back alleyways and dumpsters whenever he hasn't turned up in a while. Sixth visit to rehab didn't take.”

“I hardly think this is the time or place to-”

“-He raped you,” Ren interrupts Datoo, sending a ripple of discomfort through the table again. “Lieutenant Afterton. You were only a petty officer. It keeps you up at night, sometimes. Sometimes, you can't get it up because of him. He disappeared, after the death of the Emperor.” Ren pauses, “but he's still alive. He still thinks about it. He enjoyed i-”

“-That's quite enough, Ren!” Hux is aware he's putting himself in the cross-hairs. Ren's grinning, and it looks ill, tired.

“General Hux,” Ren all but purrs, something shifting in his disposition. “I see the way you look at me. Like my father used to look at my uncle. Like you know you shouldn't. And yet.”

“We'll continue this at another time. Return to your posts, meeting adjourned,” Hux announces, before any more damage can be done. The occupants of the room seem only to eager to exit, tripping over chairs and crowding one another at the door. Soon only Hux and Ren remain.

“Ren,” Hux groans. He supposes there's little point to demanding what in the sodding nine hells _that_ little display was, however much he might want to.

Ren just smiles that weak, fell smile, “Hux. Will you think of me, when the time comes?” All at once the smile drops from Ren's uneven face. “no, not then. Not that!”

Hux cringes, taking a step back as the strength of whatever's hit Ren takes the knight violently to his feet.

“They're in the valley. Hux. The valley. You won't see it – not through the storms. The orbit. Hux. The valley.”

Hux stares, likely a bit blankly, at a loss as to how to respond. Ren stomps out of the room in the flurry of black robes before he can make an attempt. Hux drags a hand across his face, and sighs.

“I'm not a murderer.”

It's Unamo, she'd waited for him, outside of the meeting room, trembling, her face still deathly pale. “I'll tender my resignation, General. If you wish. It's just – he beat my sister. Ghastly man. Terrible temper. Drinking. Death sticks. And one night I – I couldn't take it anymore. When I saw what he'd done to her. I tried talking to him, pleaded with him to leave her, but–”

Hux holds out a gloved hand, silencing her distressing stream. “That'll be all, Unamo. No need for your resignation.” The Order couldn't afford it, even had he wanted her gone. But a streak of viciousness in his officers has never been unwanted. “We are all fellows, here. Better to leave the details of one's past be, at times.”

“Sir,” Unamo salutes, pauses. Rushes off.

 

 

“You know Sixes is in traction.”

“Yeah.”

“You know how he got in traction?”

“Accident with a forklift.”

“No. That's what they're saying. What actually happened is..” the trooper leans in to his comrade, “Kylo Ren.”

“Isn't it _Lord Ren_ now?” his comrade does a put-upon accent, and the trooper laughs softly.

“Yeah, right. So Sixes is just making his way down to storage, yeah? And round the corner comes Kylo- Lord Ren. And Sixes salutes, right. Ren's moving fast so Sixes just tries to get out of his way. Not fast enough. Ren just moves his hand, like this,” the trooper thrusts an open hand out to one side, “and Sixes goes flying! Right into the bulkhead, three vertebrae crushed. Bloody hell.”

His comrade whistles, and a third trooper drops a crate and joins them. “I heard they found him sobbing last week, just sitting on the floor in the corner of the hall on deck five - you know the one past the generator?”

"No – what? Really?"

"Honestly. Ask Blue about it. He was just sat in the corner, shaking. Sobbing! Blues tried to, shit I dunno, help him out? They pulled him away, didn't wanna end up like Sixes-"

Hux decides he's listened in long enough.

“FI-5745, 5761 and 5785, report to Captain Phasma for disciplinary action. You have,” Hux lifts his the sleeve of his flawlessly starched uniform, checking his wristwatch, “til quarter to three. Show up five seconds late and you will be submitted for reconditioning. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sir!” the troops salute in unison, and scurry off.

       


 

Hux is at the tail-end of a scheduled holo-meeting with the Supreme Leader when decides to risk enquiry. It's the first he's heard from Snoke himself since they'd received word to fetch Ren from the rendezvous. The Leader has said little, as is his wont: inquired to the state of rearmament, to any news of Skywalker. The general has none – he trusts, as much as is possible, circumstances being what the are, that Kylo himself would report if any real progress was made on that front.

“Nothing of importance Supreme Leader – though I believe more transparency in the matter would enable the fleet to better serve in the hunt. Kylo Ren has been.. rather reticent on the subject.”

“Mm.” It's a low, satisfied grumble in the Leader's gristly throat, “he will inform you, as need demands.”

“While we're on the topic,” Hux continues quickly, nevermind the fact he's set up the subject himself, “certainly, Supreme Leader, I can comprehend the merits of corporal punishment. But I must concede that the current state of the leader of the Knights of Ren is at times counterproductive to the morale of the war effort.” Hux has run it through at a least a dozen times in his head, and so the words come swiftly, a bit too swiftly to sound spontaneous.

"You presume to question my methods.”

“Certainly not, Supreme Leader. My only concern is for the condition of your troops and the state of the war.”

“You know nothing of the Dark Side of the Force, General, or its methods. Kylo Ren's current state is a chrysalis. He will emerge from it stronger than ever before. That is all I will say on the matter. Do not attempt to engage in matters beyond your comprehension.”

The transmission ends abruptly.

Hux knows nothing of the details of what the completion of Ren's training had entailed, and he finds himself strangely wishing it were otherwise. Hux isn't even sure what he'd been hoping for – a more stable disposition from the knight, perhaps? Whatever it had been, he realizes he's received quite the contrary. Ren is unhinged, unpredictable, unsettling – even moreso than usual. He whiplashes from perfectly coherent to almost unresponsive, from distressing silence to savage outbursts. None of which had previously been unheard of, for the knight, but now it was if some sort of safety had been switched. Ren was heightened, amplified, chaotic.

It's a week before Hux sees so much as Ren's shadow again.

 

 


	2. Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> === NOT DONE POSTING YET ===

It's a week before Hux sees so much as Ren's shadow again. He's up to his ears in rearmament, and still, though the Fourth has purportedly suffered little to no casualties since its reassignment to the Knights, the lack of regular reports or official protocol from them wears on the general's nerves. There really is no cause for the radio silence – beyond what Hux assumes is some superfluous mixture of Ren's autonomy and personal pride. Unnecessary, both. More than that, inefficient.

It happens on the bridge. Gamma shift, past midnight. No one but him and Thannison on duty, and Thannison's ducked out to fetch them a late dinner. Hux takes the opportunity to have a smoke, by a vent just off the starboard viewport, when Ren all but materializes next to him.  
  
Hux almost startles - he hadn't so much as heard the knight arrive, when usually his stomping gait announces Ren's incumbent presence halfway down the hall. He recovers quickly.  
  
“Ren. Good to see you're among the living.” Hux takes another drag, looking at the man out of the corner of his eye before turning back to stars.  
  
“You wanted to speak to me.”  
  
Hux's cigarra pauses halfway to his mouth. “..That was three days ago.”  
  
When he gets no further answer, and certainly no apology, Hux sighs. Turns to face Ren. Normally the gesture would have Ren's helmeted head turning subtly to face him, the undivided attention an unusual event laden with intent. But now, Ren, bare-faced, wavers from foot to foot, inspecting something off to his right that really isn't there.  
  
“This has to end.”  
  
Ren's still appraising the invisible whatever-it-is to his right.  
  
“Ren. Look at me.”  
  
Ren turns his head to face Hux, disturbingly slow, his eyes not following. Until they do, too fast, rolling from their whites until the dark pupils are locked straight onto his.  
  
“General Hux, always playing with his spaceships. Head in the clouds. Good thing you were born to the Huxes. Imagine a man like you, with commoners for parents. Civilians. You would have killed yourself long ago.”  
  
Hux taps the ash from the end of his cigarra, frowning. “Mm, quite.” Decides to play along, for the moment. “What about you, then? Would you have been happier, born to civilians?”  
  
Ren turns a sad smile onto him. “ _They_ would have been.”  
  
“Is that what this is? Is that why you're doing this?”  
  
Ren's still not fully recovered from the wounds he sustained on the Starkiller core, but three weeks ago. And that's probably just the cream in the cocktail of whatever's wrong with him. Whatever Snoke's been doing.  
  
“Why don't you let medbay have a look at you?” Hux tries to keep his tone nonchalant. Ren had shredded the half a dozen meddroids the general had sent after him. Hux was close to asking a sniper to pump the knight full of tranquillizer from a good five-hundred yards across the ship, but he wasn't certain a medical examination would even yield much results.  
  
“Why don't _you_?” is Ren's nonsense reply.  
  
“..Would it help if I did?”  
  
“Yes.”

Hux wasn't expecting that. He's about to snap out a scathing remark about whether the knight would like his hand held, brain on auto-pilot from how their interactions usually go – but he stops himself just in time.

“Very well,” Hux says, instead, ashing his cigarra beneath his boot. Ren actually does hold out his hand. Hux hesitates a moment before taking it.

It was a mistake.

The grip turns from hesitant to uncomfortably tight to a vice in less than a second. Hux starts, tries to retract his hand but Ren won't let him, the grip crushing down all the harder, Ren pulling his hand forward, leaning in over it.

“Ren that's-..!”

Hux hears a snap and _knows_ something's broken. He snarls with the pain, pushing against Ren reflexively, trying to get free, as Ren's grip only tightens, tightens impossibly, twists back and up and forces the general to his knees before him.

“General Aurelius Hux of the First Order, born at oh-four hundred hours on Primeday, Month Three, after a four hour labour - like you couldn’t wait to get out. But your death will not be as swift. You watched the New Republic too eager to abandon the Rim worlds – it wouldn't do to have their facade of peace and fairness soiled by the corruption-bloated Outer Rim, now would it? Better to use the glittering core as the face of the senate. Let the legions of slaves and hungry drown to the killers and the pirates. So long as our walls keep them from our threshold. Begging at our doorstep. _Amputate_ the limb, not the sickness! But you will change it. You won't. You want to. You see it like rot, spread, contagion, _ignorance_ _won't save you_. General. Father, you follow him, you hated him, he was obsessed, fixated, the way he looked at your mother, like a tool, a machine, you're only sorry you couldn't, you didn't,” Ren laughs, “you wish you had the strength to kill him, too, you'll be better than him, greater, worse, so much worse, _terrible-_ ”

He lets go, suddenly, and Hux pulls away instantly with a shocked snarl. He puts five paces between them as fast as he can, a finger from his uninjured hand hovering on the nearest console’s trooper summon.

Ren jolts, staring at the general's injured hand in surprise. Like he wasn't the one to inflict it. Hux pants, feeling the blood pump out of his ruined hand, streaming down his wrist, soaking up his sleeve. Ren drops his head to hang down between his shoulders, dark hair falling over and concealing his eyes.

“Ren?” Hux steadies his voice, finger still hovering over the key.

A shudder goes through the knight before him.

“What the hell was that?” Hux rasps out between clenched teeth.

Ren doesn't reply.

“..This is why I'd like a medical opinion.”

Ren laughs, a high, pained sound. “Han Solo was the last man who tried to help me. Do you want to be the next?”

“What I want is my men in peak condition.”

“ _Your_ men.”

“The Order's.” Hux corrects himself with a nod, trying to gauge his own bloodloss by the pool forming before him, finger still over the summon.

Ren looks disappointed?

“They could be. You would like that. Supreme Leader Hux. -No, Emperor.” A feral grin takes over Ren's features. Hux tries not to shiver.

“I'll thank you to keep such treasonous thoughts to yourself.” He casts a glance over his shoulder – no sight of Thannison yet.

He turns back and Ren's still looking at him like he's an animal. Like they both are. Like he's about to lock onto Hux's neck, drain the life from him. Hux would only be mildly surprised if Ren tried.

“Look, Ren,” Hux's hand is beginning to throb viscously, and he knows the shock will be wearing off soon. “It may be the adrenaline and the bloodloss speaking but I find myself in a suddenly magnanimous disposition. Follow me to medbay to have this,” he daren't move his ruined hand, but he inclines his head toward it, “looked after, and I'll give up on the five separate _accidents_ I've already got planned for a retaliatory maiming. Are we agreed?”

Ren's expression changes at that, discordant features drawing into something more humoured, more placid than his previous hungering stare. “Ever the diplomat,” he drones.

“Mm. I do try. Now if you'll join me?” Hux heads onto the main walkway, still wary, holding his pulverized hand before him by grasping the elbow, both to steady it and to keep the dripping blood from marring his uniform further. Ren moves unevenly at his side, like a dark shadow cast by some fitful light.

Thannison rounds the corner with two covered trays. He pauses mid-step, eyes widening at the sight of them.

“Ah, Lieutenant. Mind the bridge, will you? There's been a minor mishap.” Hux speaks quickly, trying to keep the rasp of pain from his tone. “You may summon Mitaka, he's usually on the backup roster for Gamma.”

“Sir,” Thanisson calls after the pair, eyeing the drops of blood the general leaves in his wake.

  
  


“Ren. Humour me. How long has it been since you last slept?”

They're in a white-curtained cubicle in the infirmary, Hux's hand splinted and bandaged. Twelve broken bones, thank you very much, they'd given him a prescription of bacta to soak it in overnight. Ren had loomed, for once silent but no less unnerving as the staff tended to him, keeping behind the general, hunching predatory toward them as they set his bones. Hux wasn't sure if it pleased or irritated him.

Now Ren joins him on the edge of the bed, as if on queue, and Hux swallows his second set of painkillers.

“Ren?”

The knight shrugs slightly. “Starkiller.”

Hux purses his lips, suspicions confirmed. _Honestly. Ren._ He picks up the bottle of sedatives from the bedside monitor stand. “May I recommend?” he suggests, holding them out.

“I can't – I can't see it again. When I close my eyes. It's all I see.”

Hux knows better than to ask what 'it' is.

“That won't happen with these,” Hux shakes the pillbox lightly, instead. “At least, it won't be the same. They knock you out too quickly.”

Ren eyes the bottle warily, like it's a dangerous insect in Hux's glove.

“You'll be out like a light,” Hux informs, half-coaxing. “Just for a few hours.”

Ren suddenly grabs the bottle out of his hand, pops the lid, slams it back.

“Not-! all of them.” Hux curls his good hand into a fist on nothing, where it wasn't quick enough to stop the knight. At least they're in the infirmary.

Ren grimaces on the pills, and Hux passes him a plastic cup of water.

“Don't _chew_ them, Ren, honestly.”

Ren downs the water, waves the cup around. “Don't let them touch me,” he slurs, his voice gone rough. “I'll know.”

“..I'll see to it,” Hux assents, still carefully observing him.

“Hux. I mean it. You won't like what you see next time you're in here if-”

“I said I'll see to it, Ren! That means no one goes near you. Believe me,” he adds in a mutter, “they won't want to.”

Ren's still eyeing him warily, but already beginning to slouch on one side.

“Hux.” His voice is blurred, hoarse. He tips over partway against the plastisteel bars of the headboard. “Don't let them take me.”

“What?”

“They're... they're trying to take me, Hux, they're crawling.. from the walls like vermin. Like entrails. I can't... can't see them, Hux. They're coming for me.”

“..No one's coming for you,” Hux attempts, his tone firm, wondering whether he should call over a stomach pump.

Ren laughs, weakly. “They're already here.” He shudders, his eyes falling shut, body still half against the headboard. “Hux. I can't see.”

“That's because your eyes are closed,” Hux replies, attempting to tamp down his growing alarm at the situation.

“-can't see.” Another angry shudder wracks the knight's frame, settling him further down against the bed. His limbs twitch, still, phantom impulses darting beneath the black cloth on that white skin. Hux watches until they seem to subside.

The general is just about to rise from the bedside and leave – when suddenly Ren's eyes snap open, his limbs straightening off the bed. They pull taught, drawn like a bowstring, for a second, two – before Ren's back arches off the bed in a harsh angle and his entire body starts convulsing. Ren calls out, growling, hissing in a voice that is _not_ his own, in a language that Hux has never heard, blood-streaked mucous pushing out with every guttural spasm of his throat.

“ _Shaaaa grrrunnikkk ith-hhharrr! Tchurrokk sen khaaattazz al-yun, tchurrrokk-tiz!”_

Hux jolts from where he'd been seated at the bed, can hear the rustle of dashing feet behind him. He holds out both arms to his sides to wordlessly restrain the staff as they arrive, to keep them, as promised, from going near the man. Without so much as turning his eyes from Ren, the knight's seizing body now shaking the medbay cot against the floor. The lights overhead blow out, first the nearest, then the next, then rest all at once, the group gathered around Hux recoiling as glass showers them. Hux can hear monitors sparking – to his right, to his left. The wall behind Ren buckles outward.

It passes, after eighteen horrifying seconds. Ren's eyes roll back and then shut, arms and legs tremoring, shuddering before they relax back against the mattress.

The back-up generator kicks in.

Okay.

Alright.

The staff, Hux himself are still for another good minute, all eyes trained on the dark figure on the bed, the small pool of slime and bright blood staining the white sheets beneath his head. Hux is suddenly acutely aware of the hum of the ship, the thrum of the engines, the drone of the backup lighting in the wordless silence that follows.

“A.. tonic-clonic seizure, General. If I'm not mistaken,” the nurse nearest Hux's still outstretched arms supplies. “I... should probably check his heart-rate, sir, his blood-pressure, a bloodtest..” her tone is all but willing.

“You'd better let me do that,” Hux turns to her before she can move past him, taking the proffered sphygmomanometer, the vacutainer kit in hand. The rest of the staff backs warily to tend to the shattered light fixtures, the broken glass, the now-smoking monitors, unease thick in the sterilized air.

Hux hesitates a moment, hypodermic needle and kit in hand, before nearing the bed again.

“Ever the scene, with you, isn't it,” Hux mutters as he cautiously winds the tourniquet around Ren's nearest arm. It isn't exactly an effortless task one-handed. The knight mumbles something unintelligible, as if in response, and Hux is relieved, in spite of himself, to hear Ren's own voice again.

The blood values fall below cause for alarm with regards to toxicity – rather remarkable, Hux notes, considering the number of sedatives Ren had all but inhaled. Though at this point the list of things the knight could do that would still surprise Hux gets shorter by the hour.

Before leaving, Hux makes a pointed note to the medbay staff to alert _him_ , first, before approaching the knight for any reason. As predicted, they're only too ready to comply.  
  


 

Hux rewatches the holorecorded footage, late in his room that night. It matches no known language in the Order's pangalactic databases, an amalgam of Imperial and all prior Republic history. The closest he gets is Janguine, and even then, it's only the intonation, the hissing, the clicking. The phonemes, as best he recalls Ren's words, aren't even close.

Probably just jibberish, then.

Hux nurses his gin and tonic. He flicks back to the infirmary livefeed, against his own better judgement. Let the knight humiliate himself before the crew, he thinks – how could it possibly hurt his own position? Rather the contrary.

Hux taps the curve of his glass, lets a sliver of ice slide into his mouth as he takes another drink. Ren's stretched out somewhat on the display before him, though he's still mostly sideways along the length of the medbay bed that isn't really wide enough to accommodate him. He seems to be resting soundly.

Hux taps to check the security-cam footage of himself speaking to Ren on the bridge earlier that night, before he forgets. It wouldn't do to have any misconstruable conversations lying about, even though the recording of audio, barring extenuating circumstance, is strictly forbidden onboard by First Order security protocol.

There is no audio, thankfully.

Hux lets it run through, though, just in case.

The footage of Ren flickers, blurs. The rest of the holo, the floor, the viewport, the consoles around them, Hux himself, all crisp and clear. Only Ren's image crackles, wavers at the edges.

Hux grimaces. Some kind of interference. They're deep in the Queluhan Nebula, after all. Either that, or.. from Ren himself. He knows what kind of havoc the Force can reign on his machinery. It's been on the lightsaber-end of it on more than one occasion.

Hux shuts it off once the pair onscreen leaves for the infirmary, leaving the footage as is. Drains the rest of his drink, knocks off to the 'fresher.

Checks the medbay livefeed once more, despite himself, upon returning. He feels like Kylo Ren's nursemaid – and he's not sure which of them that insults more. Ren still hasn't moved. Hux retreats to his four hours of sleep.

 

Ren jolts awake in the infirmary. The first thing he feels is panic. Move. Run. Saber, where's his saber, it ignites in his hand, fight– hide, stay still, lie still, prostrate, submit to him, submit to him, submit –

He powers his saber off and shuts his eyes, breath shaking on the intake. He's in medbay, now, he tells himself. He's in medbay. He can feel the padded scurrying of the staff. They're afraid of him. He's afraid. Take it, use it. Shape it. Ren breathes. Lie still. He immediately disobeys his own advice, pulls his heavy muscles into a sit and blinks around him. By the chronometer on the nearest display he'd been out for what is it – five hours? Ren feels it in the ache of his bones. He hadn't slept for days.

Ren looks down at his right hand, the left curled tight around the comforting grip of his weapon. He's never unarmed. Never.

Hux. Ren remembers how it felt, to have the general's hand in his own. Then that sickening crunch, the splash of wetness as he crushed it.

He hadn't meant to.

He hadn't.

Ren wants to find him, to apologize. He reels against the alarming desire to. Ren stands up, storms his way out. The staff part before him, make no move to stop him or so much as an attempt at addressing him.

He wishes for his helmet.

His master knew. It had been a security, a crutch. He hid behind it – was unreadable behind it. Faceless, formless, dreadful. An emptiness to project their horrors onto.

Ren recalls the way his master's ruined eye had quirked as he prepared to leave without it.

“ _Your helmet,”_ Snoke had drawled.

“ _I don't need it.”_

And then the ruined smile. _“Good.”_

His master preferred Ren's initiative – though only when it preempted Snoke's own commands.

“ _..using you,”_ Han Solo's words again, and Ren shuts his eyes against them, he hears them a hundred times a day. He stalks faster down the halls towards his private console. He needs status updates from his knights.

 

Valeer of the Knights of Ren comes aboard The Finalizer to have her leg replacement fitted. She's one of the “persuasive” four, and when Hux sees her, six and a half feet of grey carbonized plastoid composite over kevlar and her characteristic, meter-long close-range machete slung over one thick shoulder, he knows why she'd been chosen for the task. She'd lost her leg in a homemade chemical mine on one of the New Republic fringe colonies she'd despatched her section of the Fourth to terrorize. Farmers and their nitrogen.

Hux catches her in the turbolift on a well-timed 'happenstance', as she's en route between Kylo Ren's readyroom and the bay where her shuttle is docked.

“General.” She does not salute as Hux enters, but inclines her head toward him.

“Valeer, is it?” The lift doors slide shut behind him, and Hux does a clean half-face to stand at her side.

“It is.”

“I trust our surgeons proved sufficiently competent?”

“Highly.”

Well, well. Perhaps not all of the knights of Ren shared their leader's contrary disposition.

“I am pleased to hear it.” Hux takes his in, “how goes the mission?”

Valeer shuffles, slightly. “As expected. The farmers no nothing.”

“But that is not your goal,” Hux turns a faint smile onto her, a mirthless tilt of his deceptively soft lips, and the helmeted head turns to face him.

“Indeed, General.”

It was hardly the work of a master tactician to deduce the aims of the knights' missions, once the intel reports Hux had demanded from the commanding officers of (what used to be) the Fourth started rolling in. The knights spread terror by annihilating fringe colonies of Resistance supporters, notably leaving only one survivor per site, traumatized into repeating a single sentence upon recovery. _“Where is Skywalker?”_

There was no expectation these colonists would know the way to the man. Their immediate target was not the jedi's location – but the Resistance's heart. Have it bleed until he revealed himself. Sick on what his concealment had wrought.

The lift stops at the aft bay where Valeer's shuttle is docked. Hux leans over and slides his gloved finger against the hold key. The knight does not flinch, shows no sign of concern at being detained. Not that Hux was expecting her to fear him. As a subordinate of Kylo Ren, he's surprised enough she's shown any measure of respect.

“I have a query.”

“Ask.”

“Kylo Ren,” Hux sighs inwardly, trying to settle on a phrasing. “He's not well, is he?”

Valeer delays a moment before responding. “His injuries will not impede his performance. Nor will mine.”

Hux looks down at what he knows is her cybernetic leg cloaked beneath the armour, frowning. “Your injuries were inflicted by our enemy, and tended by our surgeons. What concerns me is that neither holds true for Kylo Ren.”

Valeer is silent.

“Unless this sort of... state is a routine side effect of your.. training?” Hux struggles for diplomatic phrasing. He sees only his own reflection in Valeer's visor. He looks tired.

Valeer shifts minutely. “Routine is not the term I would use, General.”

Hux sighs, aloud this time. “I will be quite blunt, Valeer.” _What the hell did Snoke do to him?_ “Is he.. aware? Of himself, of his surroundings. Recently at times your leader can be..” _convulsing, spewing blood and nonsense_ “less than coherent.”

“He's aware of too much. If you're asking if his operational capacity has been compromised – I think Acherin, and our recent conquests speak for themselves.” She makes to exit the lift, but pauses, just before doing so. “Kylo Ren has always been unique, General. In this. In all things.”

“Yes,” Hux frowns, “quite.” He doesn't get what he was looking for.

 

 

 


End file.
